Loving Arms

Once again I head off on an adventure but something is different this time.

It was not long ago that when I charged into battle, into the unknown, into uncharted territory, not knowing what I’d face and not caring, that I knew in the end, that no matter what I had to endure, I would return to those loving arms.

The look of excitement on your face that touches me so deeply. I would return to your smile, I would return and know that you are proud of me. I would return to love, love as it was supposed to be, in the loving arms of your ever warming presence that I have melted into. It’s what allows me to charge into battle without fear.

Like a solider heading off to battle, he stands proud knowing that it is his duty to go, that he must go because others lives count on it. As he departs, he lingers in your loving arms and in his mind he envisions the day when he shall return.

He suffers. He battles day in and day out. His life is always at risk, he must endure, he must survive, he must go on, because those loving arms are the key to his heart. The light at the end of the tunnel, the stairway that leads into the depths of his soul. Those loving arms, not words, not smiles, just touch, mean more to him than anything he knows.

He replays memories of those loving arms, every detail, because that’s all he has.

But this time is different. He no longer fights for those loving arms, he no longer exists just to feel their warm embrace. He does not know why he fights, he only knows that he must go, but he can find no comfort in his return. For when he returns he will return to nothingness. He fights for himself then, but he doesn’t know why. Why go on at all? What for?

And as he lay there in the dirt, bullets flying over head, bombs bursting nearby, he is wounded. But no bullet or bomb can cause this much pain. And no doctors or bandaid can stop the bleeding. He has been mortally wounded on the inside.

He remembers those loving arms one last time as he hears the incoming of a mortar round. He smiles, he remembers their warmth, he remembers how good it felt to have something to live for, something to return to that could make him feel okay again, and as the mortar hits directly on his position, it is the last thought that he had as he faded into nothingness.

A smile on his face as he cradles his weapon as he cradled you so many times before.

Something is different this time, this much I know, although I cannot ignore that deep down inside, my loving arms may have been a dream after all.